Wooden Arms
by 71stars
Summary: This story follows Emily and chronicles her journey in school, family, and love.
1. Fireweed

Title: Wooden Arms (1/11)

Rating: R

Disclaimer: I don't own Skins.

Summary: An album fic for Patrick Watson's _Wooden Arms_, Naomily centric, with a smack of Katie/Effy.

**Fireweed**

There is a distinct kind of burning behind your eyes when you know the sun is rising, bringing the day no matter how hard you want it to go away. You remember a class once, where the teacher told you the sun, when it rises or sets, for a while it's not actually there. It's some sort of bending of the light, something to do with the atmosphere – and it simply furthers your belief that God, or whatever, got bored out of their mind billions of years ago, and started looking for things to do to make this joke of a life even worse (obviously for a laugh).

There is a distinct kind of tingling in your arms when you know its seconds before your alarm goes off, and you wonder for a moment why you don't just turn it off and spare yourself the heart palpitations when it does signal the end of the only time of day you truly have to yourself (which is funny in itself, because really, you couldn't be more alone).

There it is.

A pillow sails across the room, missing you spectacularly, and you take it as an order; that it's your turn to roll out of bed first, and turn the clock radio off. It's blaring something terrible, Katie's choice of a station obviously.

There is a distinct kind of chill that runs up your spine when getting out of bed, feet touching the floor, hair hanging around your face and spilling onto your shoulders, an ache in your stomach, when you know the day is pointless.

It's twenty minutes later and the shower is still running.

You bang on the door, "Katie!" She doesn't answer, and it's no surprise. When they were 12 they stopped talking in the mornings, and Emily isn't quite sure why. It's one of those things, like how when she was small and cried herself to sleep after a temper tantrum, and suddenly realizes she had stopped sobbing at some point, but doesn't remember – it's disturbing how the end of things pass by so quietly. It's why you rush through firsts.

The door is unlocked, but you wait.

There is a distinct kind of step you and Katie fall into when you walk together. You trailing behind, dragging your feet, and Katie ahead, acting like you aren't there. There are times when you act the same, to the point when people acknowledge the both of you when walking up the steps to school, you startle.

At some point, Katie fucks off to the bathroom to fix her makeup, and it's ridiculous really, but then again, you think as you open your locker and there is nothing but a line of books and black notebooks staring back at you – nevermind.

There is a distinct crack that reverberates around the inside of your body when you see her, and your new favorite color changes to blue in the time it takes to realize that you're even smaller in comparison to the world around than you'd thought. Her name is Naomi, and all you can think of as she sits down after being introduced to a less than interested class of drowsy middle-schoolers, is that you never knew your heart could swell and sigh.


	2. Tracy's Waters

**Tracy's Waters**

Katie always said that you were the school-minded, successful twin (it sounds like a complement, but it's not), the one who would make Mum and Dad proud enough for the both of you, and it's the role you've taken without much question or hesitation. Studying in place of parties, books instead of texting, marks instead of friends.

You wonder most nights about what it would be like to sneak out like Katie does, go to meet friends, take your fake ID's to a club, dance till morning, and sneak back in through the window in time to get ready for school. Occasionally you get as far as facing the window from under the covers of your bed, but always turn over, ready to watch the shadows on the wall until they fade when the morning light sneaks through the blinds.

Your parents seem to think the matching shadows under yours and Katie's eyes are genetic (a real shame, your Mum says); you think that it's- well you don't really know.

* * *

Katie laughs loudly at lunch one day in November, tossing her hair over a shoulder, and suddenly you wonder why you're not more bitter about who you are - a caricature of your half of a single personality you and Katie seem to share. You want to slap her in the face when she mentions you again like you're not sitting right next to her, but you bite your carrot, and review math.

* * *

History is your best subject, or was, because you can feel your concentration slip like rubber boots on grass in the rain – almost cruelly. It's an entire month of classes with this new girl before you can let your eyes wander over to study her fully. She's got her pen in her mouth, frowning at the teacher in the front of the room, her hand stuck in the air, "but sir, why did the French let an Emperor seize control – the entire point of the revolution was to gain equality and liberty, not to have a new ruler with a different title."

Nationalism, you think to yourself, and the teacher explains the concept with a fairly poor football metaphor, casting an almost imperceptible glance in your direction. Generally, this is the only time of the day speech comes easily, where it doesn't feel like there is an invisible sock in your mouth, an invisible hand pushing your head down in a way that makes you feel it's doing what's best for you.

Naomi has an odd air about her. She feels like the type of person that hates to be corrected, challenged or even looked at with a hint of doubt, but she constantly asks questions. Not stupid ones, mind you, just ones that most people have, but keep written in the margins of note sheets, nagging until they are mentioned later in class, or even in the text. It seems almost like a paradoxical quality for a person to have, but really, it's not.

"Emily?" Your head whips to the front of the class, absolutely terrified someone saw you looking at Naomi. The teacher asks you a question, and you shrug, positive you couldn't possibly speak if you wanted to, because she's turned to look at you – and you learn your body can, in fact, freeze so totally that you're sure you know what it means to be made of stone with a cavity for a heart that's about 5 sizes too small.

Instead of blushing like a normal person, you go paper-white and cold until her gaze shifts away.

It's mortifying spelled l-o-s-e-r.

* * *

"Is something the matter, Emily?" There is something annoying about people who say the name of whoever they are talking to in the conversation. "You seem distracted, and I really don't want to lose what you bring to discussions in class, Emily." It's almost like a nervous tick.

"I'm sorry sir, I'll try to improve."

You don't.

* * *

Her hair is a bleached blonde, but naturally a dark brown you notice when you can see her roots in January, the day it snows.

* * *

It's reaching stalker proportions you realize one day, when you're walking the exact opposite route you've found Naomi takes to her classes, in hopes of seeing her in the distance before flattening yourself against a wall and pretending to text someone.

A teacher takes your phone away as she walks by.

* * *

Sometimes Naomi comes up with something in History that makes your heart jump. Maybe its because you're a huge geek, who revels in sentences that end with question marks in that rhetorical way that makes you feel like a bad person, but when she almost tears the teachers head off mid-discussion regarding the colonizing of Africa, you ponder for the first time the possibility that you've fallen in love. It's in her tone when she insists that Europeans were in fact not technologically superior, just war-technology superior (because we're 'inhuman twats generally, who see more value in killing someone than in keeping them healthy, educated, and spiritually, like, connected') that you note the way her eyes crinkle and shine. It's breathtakingly beautiful to see someone find where they belong, not that you'd know anything about that though.

It's in those moments you know that Naomi has more hope in people than she lets on, that she has more faith in the world in her little finger than you could possibly hope to find in your entire body.

But there is something happening to Naomi around March that you can't quite put your finger on. It's that type of gut feeling when you changed classrooms in primary school after the summer - just_ off_.

You hope she's okay, and talk even less.

* * *

It's the night before the last day of classes, and you spend it sobbing in bed.

Katie is out, thankfully.

From 2 until 5 you kick yourself mentally over and over for not being able to speak to her, and now chances are that Naomi will be going to a different College next year, and that she'll never look at you again. She probably doesn't even know your name, or that you exist at all – and there is a physical pain that spreads from your stomach at the thought.

It's at 6 that you decide that you'll do something, anything to get her to notice you, even if it's just as that girl who lent her a pencil on the last day of History and wished her a happy summer.

When the sun peeks over the blinds and Katie mutters, "cunt" at you when you take a moment too long to open the window for her, you decide that maybe it's for the best that you're only known as her sister.

* * *

You get to History early, the first person there in fact, so you set out your notes for some last minute review, marking things that you want to have cleared up (even though you know you won't ask) and shuffle your feet until they cross under the chair, so engrossed in the Baltic struggles you don't even notice that you're not alone anymore.

"Emily, right?" Your normally overactive, chatty, and otherwise neurotic mind screeches to a halt on a curiously shaped dime with blond hair and red raincoat. It's like you're being punished for thinking of trying to talk to her when you pause for an embarrassing amount of time before you can even start to calculate the force and angle needed for opening your mouth.

"Yeah." It comes out as a whisper, and you cringe inwardly at how pathetic it sounds. You clear your throat and flick your eyes away from her, praying for some sort of divine intervention – anything to save you from the absolute crisis levels of _something_ that's rising in your throat. Her mouth moves, and your heart clenches.

"… and I can't quite remember why." Shit – _concentrate_.

"Sorry?" You try as evenly as possible, looking down at your papers, sure that it's the only way you'll be able to actually listen to her question.

"Oh, never mind," she gestures to the teacher that just entered the room, "thanks anyways though, Emily."

* * *

It's ten minutes later when you regain full awareness of your surroundings, gently pulling yourself out of the memory of her eyes lightly boring into yours.

It's twenty minutes later when you can begin to watch her from the corner of your eyes without feeling completely overwhelmed by her all over again.

It's a full half hour later when you realize that she knew your name, knows your name, and your mouth twists into a smile that you truly had forgotten you could make.

It's an hour and a half later when you're alone again and you turn to walk a different, slightly longer, way home - because really, it's a quite a nice day.


	3. Beijing

**Beijing**

It's a particularly hot summer that turns hazy when Katie decides pills are the new thing.

For nearly a month the night's stars would blur together while you had to drag Katie, sometimes fighting back, weakly, home. Occasionally she would say things like, "Christ, no I can't", or, "Nobody can see me, Em" with a slur, always with a touch of true sadness that seems so unlike her that it throws you for days - but most of the time she's just muttering about the state of her clothes.

"Katie, you have to shut up." You hiss at her on a colder Sunday night as you near your house. You had each taken a few pink pills that night that had made Katie cry for about 4 hours straight, and you want to smash everything in sight with a sledgehammer.

STUN, or something, it was called. And anyways, maybe you should just stick with MDMA.

* * *

Your parents decide that for James' birthday they are going to take you all camping. After days of arguing ("There is no fucking way I'm going into the woods to like, sleep." "Aw come on it'll be fun - in nature with all the little animals and fresh air!" "There is no fucking way.") your parents decide that you and Katie are old enough and responsible enough to stay home alone for a couple days.

Katie immediately plans a party.

* * *

By 11 the house is completely packed, rumbling with music and drunken teenage yells. Katie starts the dancing when she's sufficiently smashed, and is the center of attention long enough for you to slip away from some guy (who calls himself the "Cookie Monster", _really_) and fall into the kitchen. You can't quite remember the last time you got this drunk.

"Woah, you okay?" You know that voice somehow.

When you turn and see Naomi sitting at your kitchen table, it stretches your mind in such a peculiar way you feel the damage is irreversible, and that your brain now probably looks like an empty balloon after its been poked with a needle. You sway, and it's the alcohol when you smile.

"I know you, don't I? History with Plack?" She taps her chin, and you nod, grabbing a cooler off your kitchen counter. "Emily."

It's lame, but you love the way she says your name. Coming from her mouth it sounds like it's actually a good fit for you, Emily.

You notice the girl sitting across from her, fucking _studying_ you, and you cross your arms for a moment before uncrossing them.

"You're Katie's sister." The girl says more than asks, and you take another drink. "Not a big talker, then?"

"Uh. Suppose." It seems like a fairly banal observation to make, but nobody ever mentions that you barely speak, so you feel five different levels of naked.

"Oh sorry, this is Effy." Naomi continues after a beat, "Stonem." Recognition must have crossed your face, because Effy quirks her mouth into something of a smile. Everyone either knows, or knows of, her brother Tony Stonem.

Honestly, you've seen him once or twice; he's handsome of course, but a bit of an ass. You heard that changed after he got hit by a bus, and you suddenly wonder what would happen if the same happened to you. The buzz settling in the back of your brain, from the half-finished cooler in your hand no doubt, stops you from continuing on your train of thought, which is a bit of a godsend, because Naomi and Effy are looking at you, and you have no idea how long you've been standing there with a small smile playing on your lips and blank look in your eyes.

When you open your mouth to ask how they know Katie, she stumbles into the kitchen, stopping when she sees Naomi and Effy sitting at the table and slurs, "the fuck are you?"

"Naomi and um, Effy," you tell her.

"I know Effy, you retard," and she rolls her eyes at you, "it's why she's here, yeah?" You nod, tip back the rest of your cooler and make to leave, the world tilting dangerously and you clip the doorframe with your shoulder on your way out.

"Fucking geek," you hear her say when you get into the hallway.

* * *

It's just past two, and you're lying outside in the backyard. It's a miracle the police haven't shown up, but suspect they probably will soon – the party is getting louder with each minute closer to three.

The grass feels so cool, so enveloping in the warmth of the night air, and you think you're dreaming when you see people jumping over you, vaulting over the fence on the far end of your yard like how you think circus people must like, catch the bus or something. Your Mums flowers are probably decimated, squashed flat by Reebok's and you sit up slowly, thinking of going to tell Katie about it, when a blur grabs your hand and pulls you up, making you drop your water bottle full of rum on the paved path beside you. What a waste, you think dumbly, and glance over your shoulder after you get over the fence, just before you round the corner, and see people scattering from the house like cats from James' water gun.

It's too dark to tell who is running with you through the alleyways, which probably should bother you more than it does, but whatever. When you slow, you start laughing, and it's when you hear her laugh joining with yours that you realize who it is.

It's Naomi, with her hair askew and stuck sweaty on her forehead, visibly more drunk than when you saw her last. You almost snatch your hand out of hers, and your head is on fire.

"Fuck, Emily." She gasps, bent over, out of breath after running and then laughing for long minutes. "Why the fuck were you just lying in the yard, everyone was yelling that the cops had shown up."

You laugh, and find you have to lean on the brick wall you've found yourself by, one you recognize, and realize you're minutes away from your primary school. Naomi lights a fag beside you, which you think is kind of peculiar because she has yet to catch her breath, but you turn to watch her tilt her head and face light up for a moment when the lighter sparks. She inhales, and you realize you've been staring. She exhales, and you shift your gaze to follow the curling smoke's path towards the street lamp.

"Thanks." You slur suddenly, "I was be-"

"No problem." She cuts in, and offers you a drag, but you shake your head, and watch your shoes knock back on the brick. You stand there for a few moments, her quietly smoking, you counting the windows in the house across the road.

"Where's Effy?"

"The fuck should I know?" Naomi snorts, "Probably with your dear sister. Piece of work, that one."

"Effy?"

Exhale. "Yeah, her too."

You blink.

Naomi steps on the half-finished cigarette, and wipes her hair away from her face. "So. What are we doing?"

"Sorry?"

"Well, Effy ditched me, the party is broken up, my phone is dead, and you're here." Naomi lists in one monotone breath, looking both ways before crossing the street, then throwing, "unless you're like, busy or something" over her shoulder.

You follow.

* * *

She's swinging now, at the park beside your old school, and she's somehow convinced you to lie under the path of the swing, so at every pass she makes just above your body, she brings a slight wind with her. Had you not been blistering drunk, it probably would have seemed like a stupid idea, but you close your eyes, and it's wonderful.

"So, Emily, tell me," Naomi starts, after she's jumped off the swing and started rummaging in her bag for another fag. You watch her through your eyelashes, upside down, and you wonder when she started smoking, and if she was with friends when she did. For some reason, you think Naomi is the type of person to try that type of thing alone - or maybe you're just projecting.

She's beyond beautiful when she swears at her lighter and cold fingers.

When the end of the fag is a glowing orange, and Naomi sits down on the swing to your left, you sit up and ask, "tell you what?" You can feel sand in your mouth.

"Anything," Naomi exhales and holds the fag between her lips as she zips her sweater up, "tell me something…" She pauses, takes a drag, "interesting."

You think hard, and all that occurs to you is that a fucking grain of sand is stuck on the roof of your mouth. Fucking hell.

You come up with nothing and say as much.

"That's such a load of shit."

It's the alcohol when you scoff and lay back on the sand still warm from the day, and you can almost feel the sun on your six-year-old face.

"You're a crap conversationalist, you know?"

"Am I?" With your eyes closed, life and all its parts seem to matter less.

There is a long pause, minutes, and you really wouldn't be surprised if when you opened your eyes, Naomi would be gone. You panic when the thought occurs to you, and blink your eyes open, but she isn't gone. She's still sitting on the swing, staring straight ahead. She has the most _unsettled _look on her face, and even with your presently faulty brain, you know something is very wrong.

"Y'okay?" It startles her.

"Yeah, course." The look is gone in an instant, replaced by her usual smile when she turns back to look at you, "I just really don't sit still that often, really."

You want to press, but you concede, closing your eyes again, and begin to slur through a story about your fear of foxes. It's not really an _interesting_ story, but whenever she laughs, your hearts flutters, so you keep going – and it's definitely the most you've spoken in your life.

* * *

"Where the fuck were you?" Katie mumbles when you walk into your bedroom at 5, having had to trip all over their absolute mess of a house to get there. She's already in bed, her hands over her face.

You shrug, "Around."

You realize when you're shrugging off your shirt, that this is almost a comical reversal of roles: you coming home in the morning, her awake in bed. You go to tell Katie, but she throws her cell phone across the room after staring at it for a moment, turns over, and shuts off the lamp.

* * *

Lying in bed, you think of Naomi and what she said to you on the front porch when she'd walked you home.

How it was probably a "good night", but you were sobering, and were starting to feel absorbed by her eyes once again so you couldn't quite be sure what she'd said.

How she smiled, how you clenched your hands and turned away.

You think of how when you had come inside, and shut the door, you'd literally crumpled, totally consumed with the fear that it would be the last time you'd see her. How you would not be able to bear it, because it's not just about her anymore, you realize with a silent sob (the one you'd mastered after years of sharing a bedroom with Katie) it's about you. It's about how you are with her and without her.

You hope with all your heart that you don't crawl back inside yourself again, in the darkness that it is, that's waiting for you. You hope that the marks Naomi has left on your pathetic little life turn to scars, and refuse to fade. You hope that you never forget how her voice struck something so deep in you. You hope that the sand in your hair never washes out entirely.

You hope, you hope, you hope that you don't become who you were not twelve hours ago, again.

But in the dusk that follows, in the day, the week, and the final month of summer – you do.


	4. Interlude

A/N: I apologize for the lack of updating - summer classes are completely taking over my life at the moment. I am working on the next chapter, and hope to be done by the end of the weekend. This is a short one, not a full chapter in the least, but I hope you enjoy it.

Interlude

It's 3 am the night before the first day of College, and you're six streets away from your house, sitting cross-legged on a grassed boulevard, smoking your second pack of fags that night, holding them with the tips of your fingers like the absolutely filthy things they are.

You tap ash off the end and shrug, this should serve you right, you suppose.

Humming a disjointed medley of random songs, which fade when the occasional car passes, you wonder what it's like in your room right now. With both you and Katie gone, it's a bit of a "does a tree make a sound if it falls and no one is around to hear it?" sort of thing. It makes you feel a little more bizarre than it probably should, you not being somewhere.

You push your sweaty fringe out of your eyes, look up at the cloud-covered sky, and vaguely remember stars overhead.

You've promised yourself to try not to think of her anymore, but the acrid smelling smoke rising from your mouth and nose, the soft rays from the street lamp, the silence; all of it just makes your heart ache and your throat stick.

Coughing on the last fag in the pack, you flick it away before shifting to your feet, jogging across the street, and hopping over a short fence into the backyard of an apparent lawn-gnome enthusiast. It's the second time you've forgotten to check if the lights in the house are even off before you sneak into the yard, but you continue your ritual, and pick up the smallest gnome and scrutinize a crack that winds around it.

You wonder if it was dropped.

Glancing over, you notice a Volkswagen is sitting in the back; one that looks like it hasn't been used for a long while, collecting rust, bugs, and dust – the hood sitting open like a mouth of an alligator or something. Your feet crunch on gravel with your approach, and when you climb over the worn seat, foam pulling over springs underneath, you find another pack of fags lying between the seats, and crumple it in your hands, the panic of having to smoke another pack rising in your chest.

You remember being offered a single one.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, you feel so out of body that you forget yourself entirely and start banging your hands against the steering wheel, beeping the tinny horn until lights turn on in the distance.

Adrenaline grips you and you run. Run from the house and empty car feeling full, the half pack of reds crumpled in your hand, your mouth slack and silent.

* * *

It's hours, dozens of yards, 4 more panic smoked packs of fags that has completely ravaged your throat, and at least ten cars later that the sun starts to rise, and you decide to head home.

It's when you're climbing over your own fence one leg at a time, taking care not to rip your already ruined skirt, that you feel absolutely consumed by something raw – primal, even. It's an anger, an embarrassment, an absolute tearing. You want to scream, but Katie is climbing up the trellis and easing the window up, so you just draw one arm across your eyes and exhale unevenly, and feel a fag you'd forgotten to smoke in your pocket.

The tears don't come when you smoke it on your back porch, but your nose runs and eyes burn when you feel like burying yourself in the garden.

The grass smells like rain, but it's the settling dew, and it almost feels like a lie.

* * *

"Here's what you're wearing today, yeah?" Katie is spreading out clothes on your made bed at 7:30, your face still streaked with dirt. She's made her way over to her make up before she stops, and studies you in the mirror like you haven't been in the same room for an hour and it's the first time she's looked at you. "Em, go shower or something, you're all fucking grimy."

It's more than her not wanting to ask, and you not wanting to tell. Questions are a thing of the past for them now, like monkey bars and sidewalk chalk.

You blink and nod.

She gathers her bag and heads downstairs, throwing over her shoulder, "Effy is picking us up soon, and we're not waiting for you."

* * *


	5. Wooden Arms

Wooden Arms

You haven't been driven to school by a parent (not anyone else's, and most definitely not your own) in years, so when you spot an older man sitting in the drivers seat while you follow Katie down the front path, it's that much easier to fall asleep at once after climbing in.

Face pressed against a backseat window, it's a doze, one that has you weaving between Katie and Effy's one-sided conversation and odd half-dreams of walking through fireworks. Flashes of color just barely missing your body separated by Katie's almost-compliments about Effy's clothes, Effy's hair, Effy's bag ("Must be hard to get it like that with your hair being so dry - get lots of fucked up ends, yeah? Looks good, though."). While waiting at a red light, eyes strained shut against the ever-brighter world outside the car, you wonder briefly if the girl has even said anything by this point, before a yellow sparkling explosion shatters beside the car, and you realize you have truly no idea what's part of your dream world and what's part of the real world.

The ten-minute ride through traffic to College feels like hours, but soon enough Katie steps out of the parked car without saying a word before almost immediately sticking her head back in when you hadn't moved to get out quite yet. Katie's eyes aren't the usual gleaming angry, but still impatient, and you jump up like she's pinched you.

Stepping out into the bright sunlight, the dull burn at the back of your eyes hint that it was stupid to not sleep last night.

A few seconds of eye rubbing after thanking Effy's Dad (or, well, Katie's spoken for you) and walking behind the two across the lawn, you look around for the first time since the tour you and Katie had taken months ago.

It's most definitely not middle school.

After seeing the first couple of students walk by wearing the brightest or the darkest of clothes, hats, jackets, playing with foot bags and gathering in large or small circles, you immediately are taken back to the time you went to see "The Circus on Ice" with toddler James and an already snarky Katie, watching curious people in still more curious costumes streak by.

The Circus. Where nothing is real, everything seems magical, and a bag of popcorn with a princess hat inside the bag (that Katie had plead for, and gotten, though your mother hadn't ever let her wear it, because of the fact it had been sitting in a bag of popcorn) costs 15 dollars. It's the stuff of dreams for a few hours, until you get home, realize you've been taken, and feel like you've been spat on right in the face.

You suppose it's not normal, how hard you'd taken that bit of reality, but after that day you'd resolved that all children's events are jokes. It was as you'd grown that you'd come to be deeply bothered by how utterly stupid older people tend to think kids are. Really, when kids tend to meet exactly the expectations that are made for them. Parents aim low, and then the kids get in trouble when they stop there. It's ridiculous, but then again, people generally are – it's why things like circuses were even invented.

Katie stops short to hug someone and you almost step on her heels. You're absolutely sick of College before you've even gotten in the door.

There is a panic that grips your body when everything around you halves in speed when you see a blond flash in the crowd, and all the air is pulled from your lungs.

You stumble on a step and feel embarrassed before you can catch your breath and apologize to Katie for having to grab her bag so as to not end up sprawled on the ground. Though, you resolve, maybe if you had fully fallen, your body would match the state of your insides, and you wouldn't feel as if you were flat out lying when you'd muttered you were fine in response to Effy's concerned eyes.

'Cause you're not.

A spike of anger courses through you when she makes to pursue making sure that you are in fact, okay, but she seems to think better of it. And it's a good thing too, because from the few times you've actually made eye contact with Effy, you've wondered how Katie could even be friends with her; she was simply too piercing, too probing. It's dangerous.

Katie waves to fuck knows who at the doors before passing through them into this new stage of _whatever,_ and you all but cover your face in your attempt to stifle a yawn.

The shiny tile of the school under your feet feels dead when Katie's heels click across it.

You're tired.

* * *

Instead of going to the gymnasium for the assembly with the rest of your brand new classmates, you decide to sit in the bathroom with your legs held tightly to your chest, listening to girls walk in, chatting, and leaving the same way. It's truly mixed, the way you feel about maybe of being one of those girls. It's pointless to think of it any more than you already have since you've already resolved you could never be one of them, but some days you feel you'd do anything, give up anything, to be them. Other days, you don't.

The bathroom smells like artificial lemons, and you're reminded of other people's car fresheners.

* * *

It's a while later when you hear Katie click her way in, sounding eerily similar to the tens of girls that have come and gone in the past half hour. She's at the sinks with two girls you recognize from middle school, and you watch them fix their hair and makeup through the small crack where the stall door hinges. They're laughing about something when Katie suddenly snappily mentions to them that she wants to know where, "my fucking tart sister is." All you can do is hold your body rigid, swallow and hope she doesn't turn and see your eyes watching her. You close them, and hope she doesn't continue.

She does.

"I mean, fucks sake, how can she get lost ten minutes in, right? She's such a retard sometimes, and well, just goes to show grades mean fuck all."

She leaves, friends giggling in tow, and you almost have to remind yourself that you don't blame her for everything.

* * *

Your eyes look lost most of the time anyways (or so you're told), so it's not hard to catch a teachers gaze and be directed to the office to pick up a timetable within minutes of leaving the bathroom.

"It's quite all right dear, students get lost on their first day every year."

You force a smile and take the timetable, embarrassed for something you didn't do.

* * *

Katie ends up in the same English class as you, and you cringe when you notice there is no one else she knows in the room.

"Em, where the fuck have you been? Never mind, you missed the most hilarious fucking thing at assembly. Are you listening?"

You're not, but she continues after you nod.

The course book you're looking through looks interesting enough, you note as Katie is still babbling away. Glancing at the board, you flag the piece "Plato's Allegory of the Cave" that's to be read by next week, and let your mind wander.

* * *

It's the most unceremonious thing when you see Naomi in the hallway at the end of the day.

You're walking with Katie, she passes by, and it doesn't even sink in that it was her for a full 30 seconds, and by that time, she'd already rounded the corner.

After another 30 seconds, you feel so overwhelmed and full of adrenaline your vision blurs and the edges go black.

Her hair is longer, and she looks beautiful in orange.

* * *

It's dark and you're out by the hill, beside the bus stop shelter, standing in a parked bus that's about 4 times larger than any you'd ever seen before. The inside is decorated like a banquet hall, with a chandelier, and you think of the Knight Bus. Glancing around from the door, you notice everyone is seated, dressed in gowns and ties, listening to a four-piece band perched on a small stage. Katie is laughing with Effy, your parents are feeding James from a giant bowl of soup, your English teacher is sitting by himself.

You're completely underdressed and uncomfortable, so you make to leave.

Naomi is sitting in the drivers seat looking out the windows, smoking and looking a little disjointed, like she's photo shopped in place, wearing Effy's clothes. She opens her mouth, and her voice positively rings in your head.

"Not staying, then?"

"I don't think I was invited."

"No one was," she disappears in a cloud of smoke.

It's too much, and you turn to walk down the few steps to the sidewalk, but she follows.

"Smoke?"

You shake your head.

"The moon." She jerks her head to the north, where the moon is shining, looking bigger and brighter than normal. She leans against the bus shelter, and coughs.

You want to remark on it, want to tell her not to smoke anymore. It's bad for you, you want to tell her, but the moon flickers and it steals your attention.

The light from it turns on and off, like someone is flipping the switch, like it's burning out. It flickers twice more, and then it's gone.

"What the fuck?"

People are flooding out of the bus as the clouds above split apart and strings of light reach down. They touch the ground, and ignite the grass, the playgrounds, the school, and the cars.

Everyone, everything is burning.

You lift a leg to run, but you're gone before you can move.

"Em, school." You open your eyes, and can hardly see through the tears.

* * *

Pulling on your shoes at the front door, Katie mumbles that ("that bitch") Effy isn't coming today, that they'll be walking this morning.

* * *

It's a few blocks down when you ask without thinking, "why?"

Katie turns suddenly, and you remember being five at the museum and asking a million questions, remember her sighing.

"Why what?" She's got a warning look in her eyes, but there is something about the smell of the air that makes it irrelevant. It's important to you suddenly, to know.

"Why is she a bitch? Thought you were best friends or something."

She stops, pauses, and rails on you. "None of your fucking business, yeah? She's a bitch because she apparently can't have more than one friend at a fucking time, and apparently that bitch Naomi is the fucking flavor of the fucking week."

"Naomi." It rolls of your tongue before you can stop it, but thankfully Katie takes it as a question and scoffs.

"Yeah, remember at our party? Fucking fake blond, and constantly acts like her entire family was just murdered?"

You nod, and try and change the subject silently. It doesn't work.

"I mean, okay I thought it was funny yesterday, with Cook and all, but really now that I think about it, she's just fucking mental. He was fucking joking, y'know?" You have no idea what she's talking about, but you nod and she scoffs again, "Naomi Campbell."

You walk the rest of the way to school with Katie on the phone, laughing while her eyes don't.

* * *

English should be your best class, but when you walk in and notice her, _her_, her with blond hair and narrowed eyes, sitting at the back of the room, texting, you can't concentrate for the entirety of the lecture. You scribble cubes and circles in the margins of your notebook, and take no notes. Thankfully you're not called on, and when you're packing up at the end of class, body hunched over your bag, you see her feet stop at your desk.

"Emily?" She sounds a little shocked, like she's the one who was there the first day and you're the one who missed it. You look up and she's studying you.

"Hi." You're pleased you could come out with even that for a moment before you feel embarrassed and hope you haven't gone red. You're so busy keeping tabs on where your legs and arms are as you get up from your chair, you don't catch what she's said.

"Sorry?"

"How was your summer?" Her eyes are tired looking, like she's been sleeping about as well as you have.

"Fine." Even though you've only had a total of like 3 conversations you find it odd that you're getting her full attention, that her hands are at her sides, eyes fixed.

Katie snaps her fingers from the door, jerks her head with the clear message to hurry up, a look crossing her face that's a mixture of frustration and unkind curiosity when she recognizes who's holding you up. She raises her eyebrows. It gives you that little push, her disapproval.

"Yours?" You're looking over her shoulder when you ask, and when she turns to look, Katie is pretending to not notice.

"Gotta go?" It feels like a dare. "I've got History in 3 minutes, besides."

"Yeah." You adjust your bag and pull your fingers through your hair while she leads you out of the classroom.

"Oh, Em," She calls after you down the hall, and you stop and turn, "Effy and me are going out on Friday, some show, if you're not busy?"

It takes you a second to realize it's an invitation, and you blink.

"You and your sister," she amends, "if she's not still pissed, or whatever, with Effy."

You nod after a seconds hesitation, and she smiles before taking off.

* * *

You've always felt that there had been a disconnect between you and Katie, a chasm where certain things didn't pass. Things you didn't talk about, that generally felt more out of necessity that out of vanity or ease, weren't talked about. Sometimes you'd questioned if it was really even a mutual unspoken agreement, or if you were just imagining things.

It started getting quieter in middle school. The both of you stopped speaking twin, she stopped talking about her friends, you stopped talking about boys. It was then that you'd understood you weren't imagining anything.

By the time it's Friday and you're getting ready to meet Effy and Naomi, Katie fixing your makeup in your room, it's silent, and you can almost hear the things echoing out of the chasm between the two of you.

It's drowned out with club music rumbling down the stone road an hour later.

* * *


End file.
